Morning, Moon, and Mercury
Last week Mercury wandered far to the west of the Sun. As the solar system’s innermost planet neared its greatest elongation or greatest angle from the Sun (for this apparition about 27 degrees) it was joined by an old crescent Moon. The conjunction was an engaging sight for early morning risers in the southern hemisphere. There the pair rose together in predawn skies, climbing high above the horizon along a steeply inclined ecliptic plane. This well composed sequence captures the rising Moon and Mercury above the city lights of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. A stack of digital images, it consists of an exposure made every 3 minutes beginning at 4:15 am local time on April 19. Mercury’s track is at the far right, separated from the Moon’s path by about 8 degrees.
Hubble to Watch Historic Venus Transit, Using Moon as Mirror
Scientists are planning to use NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to observe next month’s historic transit of Venus across the sun’s face.
But there’s a twist. Researchers can’t point Hubble anywhere near the sun, because our star’s bright light could damage the telescope’s super-sensitive instruments. So Hubble will watch the June 5-6Venus transit by using the moon as a mirror.
Imaged Above: Michael Wilce of Central London, UK took 20 composite shots to create this image of Venus transit on June 8, 2004. CREDIT: Michael Wilce
Titan
Composite of three raw CB3 filtered images taken by the Cassini spacecraft on December 15, 2011 from a distance of 1 million km. To make the image, the three raws were resized 5x blended by averaging, and obvious defects (3 spots in a row) clone stamped out. Contrast adjustment and resizing was also done.
The dark dune sand sea of Belet is visible in this image. To the right, the bright terrain known as Adiri appears as a bright splotch surrounded by the narrow dune sea of Ching-Tu to the S and Shangri-La to the N and E. At the extreme eastern end of Adiri, near the terminator at left, is the Huygens landing site. North is approximately at top in this image.
Image credits: NASA / JPL / Space Science Institute / Mike Malaska
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Galileo moon phases
Galileo’s sketches and observations of the Moon revealed that the surface was mountainous.
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Lunar Eclipse Pictures: See Last Weekend’s Red Moon
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LED Moon Light by Nosigner
Inspired by the recent “Supermoon”, product and graphic designer Nosigner (Eisuke Tachikawa) has designed an LED-embedded moon light using actual 3D topographical data taken from the lunar orbiter Kaguya. I can only hope that such a lovely, hypnotizing object will one day be made for sale.
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Moon and Venus over Monviso
Just after sunset, the crescent Moon (showing a beautiful earthshine) and the brilliant Venus put on a great show over the Monviso. The mountain (3,841 m – 12,602 ft) is the highest peak of the Coattian Alps and its pyramid-like shape if visible for large areas of the Nortwestern regions of Italy. It also famous for hosting the source of the Po, the longest river in Italy. — Stefano
Copyright: Stefano De Rosa
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Earth May Have Swirled Moon’s Core
Scientists have a new explanation for how the moon got — and lost — its magnetic groove; The Earth did it, at a time when the moon was closer than it is today.
Rock samples returned by the Apollo astronauts show the moon once had a long-lasting, global magnetic field, though it has none today.
On Earth, it is heat from the inner core swirling fluids in the molten iron outer core that triggers the magnetic field-producing phenomenon known as a dynamo.
Fight by Sarafin Concepts
Full Moon by Sotirios Papadopoulos
A striking credenza, with a photo-realistic, luminous image of the moon printed on its surface.
Coated with ELI (Eco Light Inside), an eco-friendly material developed by the designer, which creates a realistic, glowing effect when the lights go out.
Ships with an accompanying CD of original music designed specifically for this piece.
